Not sure if Michael O’Brien is aware that there is some
precedent for a Saint Joseph’s Hawk putting his name on the J. Wood Platt
Trophy that goes to the winner of the BMW Philadelphia Amateur Championship.
Michael McDermott, arguably the best player in the history
of the program, won three Philly Amateur titles between 2008 and 2016. Billy
Stewart had just graduated from Malvern Prep, but was about to matriculate on
Hawk Hill when he captured the Philadelphia Amateur in 2002.
Those are the two that come to mind because they’ve been in
this century. It is the 120th playing of this championship, so
there’s a decent chance there’s been another Hawk in there since it was first
contested in 1897.
O’Brien, a native of West Chester, Ohio, has a chance to add
his name to the list of St. Joe’s players to win this event when he squares off
against Zach Barbin, the oldest of the golfing Barbins of Elkton, Md. and
Chesapeake Bay Golf Club, for the Philadelphia Amateur crown in the scheduled
36-hole final Saturday at Lancaster Country Club, a William Flynn gem in
Manheim Township that played host to the 2015 U.S. Women’s Open.
The 22-year-old O’Brien is playing out of Makefield
Highlands Golf Club while the 21-year-old Barbin is playing out of Loch Nairn
Golf Club, which makes this the first meeting of finalists representing
public-course facilities in the history of the Philadelphia Amateur.
O’Brien rolled to a 7 and 6 victory over his St. Joe’s
teammate Richard Riva in Wednesday morning’s quarterfinals. They are close
friends and O’Brien actually stayed at the Riva household this week. Riva is a
native of the Lancaster area and is a Lancaster Catholic product.
O’Brien then survived a tough test against Saucon Valley
Country Club’s Matt Mattare, claiming a tense 1-up decision in Wednesday
afternoon’s semifinals.
Barbin, a senior at Liberty, took out Penn State senior
Lukas Clark, a Council Rock South product who was playing out of Galloway
National Golf Club, 3 and 2, in his quarterfinal match Wednesday morning.
Barbin then played nearly flawless golf in a 4 and 3 victory
over St. Davids Golf Club’s Brian Gillespie, a veteran Golf Association of
Philadelphia performer who won the Philly Amateur in 2001, in Wednesday
afternoon’s other semifinal.
It was really a remarkable run by the 45-year-old Gillespie,
who reached the semifinals with a dramatic 1-up victory over 2014 champion Jeff
Osberg, who plays out of Pine Valley Golf Club.
Osberg is GAP’s reigning William Hyndman III Player of the
Year and a threat to win any time he tees it up in a GAP major. Gillespie
delivered the dagger when he holed a 50-foot birdie putt on the par-3 17th
hole that gave him a 1-up advantage heading to the 18th tee.
O’Brien was poised for a fantastic finish to his career at
St. Joe’s when the coronavirus pandemic put an abrupt end to his senior season.
With the NCAA granting an extra year of eligibility to athletes who lost this
season to the virus, O’Brien will take the extra year and play for Florida Gulf
Coast.
Last fall, O’Brien lost in a playoff for the individual
title in the Homewood/Hilton Garden Airport Challenge hosted by Florida Gulf
Coast at Old Corkscrew Golf Club in Estero, Fla. I’m thinking Old Corkscrew is
a fun place to play.
Win or lose in Saturday’s final, O’Brien won’t give back the
experience he’s had this week at Lancaster.
“I said (Tuesday) I was playing with house money,” O’Brien
told the GAP website. “I wasn’t playing great coming in. To play competitive
golf again and to make it this far and have 36 holes on Saturday is a blast.
“You have to learn that tournament golf is tournament golf,
but it’s still golf. You go out and have fun and do your best. Bad things are
going to happen. You are going to have putts that don’t go in and you are going
to hit bad shots. You just try to have fun and not worry about what happens at
the end of the day.”
O’Brien got a quick 2-up lead on Mattare, a Jersey City,
N.J. resident who owns major victories in both the GAP (Middle-Amateur and
Philadelphia Open) and Metropolitan (Met Amateur) associations.
He holed out from 130 yards away with a pitching wedge for
eagle at the par-4 second hole and then stopped a 60-degree wedge three feet
from the stick at the par-4 third hole and made the putt. Mattare had a
dramatic chip-in for birdie at the par-3 eighth hole to cut his deficit in
half, but he was never able to square the match.
O’Brien won the 12th hole to restore his 2-up
advantage, Mattare won the 13th hole to again cut his deficit to
1-down, O’Brien answered by taking the 14th hole to again take a
2-up lead and Mattare again cut his deficit in half by winning the 15th
hole. But Mattare would get no closer.
Mattare’s 40-foot birdie try at the 17th hole
turned away at the last second. His last chance, a 25-footer for birdie at the
last, was too strong.
Barbin couldn’t break into the starting lineup at Liberty a year
ago when the Flames cracked the top 25 in the Golfstat rankings and
qualified as a team for the NCAA Championship with a fifth-place finish in the
Athens Regional.
But he was working his way into the lineup and Liberty was
gearing up for another postseason run when the pandemic ended the season.
Younger brother Austin was GAP’s Junior Player of the Year
in 2019 when he captured the GAP Junior Boys’ Championship and the Christman
Cup. Austin Barbin had worked his way into the starting lineup as a freshman at
Maryland in the ill-fated 2019-2020 season. Austin Barbin was ousted in the
9-player playoff for the final four spots in match play at Lancaster this week.
The physical test that the Philadelphia Amateur presents
often favors the college guys, although they didn’t have the advantage of
having played so much competitive golf in March and April that they normally
do.
Zach Barbin, though, was not to be denied his spot in the
final. Wins at the first, third and fifth holes gave him a 3-up edge and he made
sure that early advantage held up against Gillespie.
O’Brien and Barbin are deserving finalists and Saturday’s match
will put an exclamation point on a week at Lancaster that has been typically dramatic, pandemic or no pandemic.
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